Two municipal water companies in Aceh are revamping in order to upgrade their service to customers. One of the efforts being made toward quality improvement is the inventorying of assets.

Banda Aceh. As is appropriate for any business entity, a Municipal Water Company (PDAM) must base its business operations on profit-oriented principles. Company assets, including land, water sources, water processing installations, and pipe networks, are core capital elements for improving and expanding service as well as for profit making.

Careful inventorying of such assets is important because any error or duplicated recording of equipment could influence the company’s performance.

In order to improve their asset inventory systems, PDAM Tirta Mountala in Aceh Besar Regency and PDAM Tirta Daroy in Banda Aceh, were each assisted by ESP to form asset inventory teams in October 2007. For three months, these teams collected both technical and non-technical data relating to assets, including their purchase value and depreciation.

In support of the teams’ performance, ESP undertook several counseling and guidance activities, such as asset management training in order to enrich their knowledge about inventorying, recording and organizing assets, as well as reportage systems. Throughout the inventory recording process, discussions, attended by members of both asset teams, were held every two weeks to evaluate past and ongoing activities, to discuss any problems occurring, and to facilitate coordination between the two teams in order to prevent any double recording of assets.

Through these activities, the two PDAM teams were able to pinpoint a number of existing asset inventory problems, including the duplicate recording of the same assets at the two companies, whose customer service territories border directly upon one another. The situation resulting from the 2004 tsunami also made the inventory process more difficult because many documents had been lost, which meant that both inventory teams had to do field surveys to determine whether assets had been destroyed, were damaged, or remained functional.

As it turned out, the inventory training provided up to the beginning of January 2008 was very beneficial for the PDAM staff.

”The presentation of materials was systematic and simple. I can now calculate office assets and classify them without assistance from anyone,” said Mala, finance department head for PDAM Tirta Mountala. Samirul Fuady of PDAM Banda Aceh event succeeded in developing a simple formula for counting assets, which as then also used by PDAM Tirta Mountala.

These activities will be followed up with a presentation reporting the results of the PDAM asset inventory to the mayors, regional secretaries and other stakeholders on January 16, 2008. During this report presentation workshop, it is expected that solutions can be found for the problems noted during the asset survey by the two inventory teams.

Nurisnindah, ESP NAD